L’Oeil Du Coeur

This is not your everyday easy listening album. For those without a strong grasp of Arabic and/or French, either a lot of patience or a love of the human voice is required. The sole focus of L’oeil Du Coeur (The Eye of the Heart) is poetry, and it’s fluently dictated by the political dissident and Moroccan exile Abdellatif Laâbi, who was tortured and imprisoned for his political beliefs and writings. Switching between French and Arabic, Laâbi rattles off long passages of verse, interspersed with expertly performed Arabic songs by Driss El Maloumi on oud and Naziha Meftah on vocals.

The album is in many ways a true celebration of the human voice and the beauty of language – there’s pleasure to be had from Laâbi’s spoken passages, even without understanding their meaning. It’s the kind of stuff that’s capable of enticing you into a gentle snooze. Naziha Meftah’s vocals, however, might soon wake you up, not for their volume but for their sheer elegance, to which the Arabic language lends itself. This is perhaps best expressed on ‘Enface’, where it’s heard in isolation.

Although there are only three performers, a certain degree of variety is achieved. One standout example of this is track nine, part of a suite called ‘Migration’ that features another spoken passage by Abdellatif Laâbi, but this time it’s delivered over a backdrop of floating sung vowels by Meftah, who manages, incredibly, to resemble the woody sound of the nay (reed flute).

There’s a mix of solo passages (oud or vocals), ensemble passages (with occasional percussion), and melodic interplay that allows both Maloumi and Meftah to really shine. Although the recording of the oud could have been done with more care, it’s still possible to recognise Maloumi’s capabilities.

All in all, L’oeil Du Coeur won’t be to everybody’s liking but what it sets out to do, it does very well.